Sustainable Tuna

Tuna are amongst the most commercially valuable fish on Earth. But as demand for the species has skyrocketed, some tuna stocks are now fully exploited or overfished. Working with WWF, some companies are now showing the way to catch this fish without exploiting it to extinction.

Tuna are fished in over 70 countries worldwide and marketed in fresh, frozen or canned form. Tuna were once a low value substitute for other fish such as salmon and sardines.

But since the 1960s, this situation has drastically changed. World tuna catches have been increasing constantly and rapidly with world canned (processed) tuna incrementing from 200,000 tonnes in the 1970s to more then 1 million tonnes only 10 years ago.

Catches of tuna are rising, but there is evidence that wild populations are not replenishing fast enough for this trend to continue.

Between 1940 and the mid-1960s, the annual global catch of the 5 principal market species of tunas rose from about 300,000 tonnes to about 1 million tonne. With the development of purse-seine nets, now the predominant gear, catches have risen to more than 4 million tonnes annually during the last few years.

Overfished

Current status of the Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna, Pacific Ocean (eastern and western) bigeye tuna, and North Atlantic albacore tuna (source: ISSF)

WWF approach

As such, WWF helps to assess company supply chains and, where appropriate, achieving credible certification such as that of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a system for recognizing sustainably caught seafood.

CASE STUDY: MANAGING SUSTAINABLE STOCKS

One of the key issues in maintaining healthy tuna stocks is a lack of effective management. To address this, in 2009 WWF joined with marine scientists and key players in the tuna processing industry to form the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF).

The ISSF advocates for effective regional management structures, and tuna fisheries move towards Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification. The eight companies that were founding members together controlled more than half the global canned tuna market.

This gave the organisation considerable clout – which it used immediately. In April 2009 ISSF announced that its members would stop buying bigeye tuna from the eastern Pacific unless the IATTC agreed to science-based conservation measures that would allow the stock to recover.

CASE STUDY: Raising standards for tuna

When the Maldives pole-and-line skipjack tuna fishery first applied for Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification, WWF saw problems. Skipjack tuna are highly mobile and spread across the Indian Ocean, requiring management as a single stock. Credible certification would have been impossible without appropriate measures at the stock-wide level to manage and safeguard Indian Ocean skipjack tuna stocks. In the process of clearing such hurdles, the Maldives raised standards within the whole Indian Ocean region.

After joining the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) in 2010, the Maldives encouraged the first model-based skipjack stock assessment for the region. In 2012, the Maldives pole and- line skipjack fishery achieved MSC certification, although with a set of conditions, making it a first in the Indian Ocean.